High heart rate at end of NYC

A better HR monitor will help you avoid this.

Watch-based HR monitors do funny things at high speeds and under race conditions. If you feel OK, don't panic about what your HR monitor says. If you feel bad, panic, no matter what your HR monitor says.

For my most recent marathon, I realized my HR wouldn't tell me anything that I didn't know already, and I wanted bigger numbers on my screen so I didn't have to squint or look too long late in the race, so I set my Garmin to only 2 data fields: total elapsed time and lap pace. Everything else was just a distraction.

I’m guessing it was a wrist based GPS watch... If yes, I wouldn’t worry about those readings, they were just faulty. If you didn’t feel the exertion or your heart going crazy, then esp. so...

Get yourself a chest based HR monitor;)

Thanks. Yes, the reading is from a watch.

I will definitely look at getting a chest one.

But let's say the reading was right, or at least close to right. Anyone else experience this? Like I said, I've never had a high reading like that in any training or races, including NYC last year.

Mitch P. wrote:

But let's say the reading was right, or at least close to right. Anyone else experience this? Like I said, I've never had a high reading like that in any training or races, including NYC last year.

If your heart rate spikes that high, you will absolutely know without the watch needing to tell you. You will also be incapable of continuing for very long. I consider any reading on a heart rate monitor suspect if it's very surprising. The best use case is at the margins, e.g., "I think I'm running at a sustainable effort, but my HRM says I'm high, and it's early in the race, so maybe the excitement is reducing my perceived exertion, and I should ease off slightly," or "I feel like crap in this workout for some reason, and my HRM is telling me that I'm working harder than I usually would be at this pace, so I know it's not all in my head, and I'm going to abort this workout and take another rest day before trying again." Even then, I typically don't advocate either training or racing TO the heart rate monitor; I prefer limiting it after the fact analysis.

Anyway, I've never heard of random heart rate spikes to that level. Some people have a rare condition called WPW syndrome that can cause their heart rate to spike up way up to around 300 at random times, even when sitting still. But again, when they have those episodes, they don't need a heart rate monitor to tell them it's happening.

It may be worth seeing your doctor if you felt remotely strange when your hrm was showing a high rate. Wrist based hrms really aren't very good at higher heart rates, but still... It's not completely unusual for athletic people to develop arrhythmia, which, speaking to friends who've experienced it, you can feel - they've needed to stop completely and rest a few minutes to control.

Never look at HR during a race. If you're gasping your HR will be high, no need for digital feedback. You need to pay greater attention to your effort levels during training.

Mitch P. wrote:

Did my 2nd NYC Marathon and ran into an issue that never cropped up in any races or training.

At around mile 18, my HR went as high as 200 and my watch alerted me. My first thought was wondering if my new gels had caffeine in them, but I knew they didn't.

I didn't feel out of breath or like I was overly exerting myself. Just the normal leg fatigue at this point in the race.

Worried, I decided to slow down until I was back in the green zone. Then, I'd speed up until in the red. Then, slow down, etc. I did this until the end.

This ever happen to anyone? This has never happened to me.

I guess just more training can help avoid?

I had a similar instance just a few mornings ago. I ran a hard tempo effort on Tuesday, and used Wednesday morning as a very easy 35 minutes to start the day. I kept my HR in the 120s up to 135 for 29 minutes, and then coincidentally as my watch was dying, as it alerted me "low battery" my HR spiked to the 160s. There wasn't even a thought to this being accurate as I was hardly breathing, and nearing the end of my run. My pace hadn't changed the slightest bit. So I looked in the "time in zone" section of the Garmin and my pace was z2 95% of the run, and the last 6 minutes, it had me at z4. I find the wrist HR monitors pretty accurate most of the time, but they can also be screwy with some conditions, or in my case, if the battery was dying.

Like others stated, you'd ABSOLUTELY know if your HR was truly at 200. If you didn't sense that kinda racing heart, I wouldn't be too worried by it.

I recently switched from an old Garmin to the Polar M-430, and was psyched for the optical HR wrist thing....I was tired of wearing a strap. I got it, and quickly found the wrist sensor SUCKS. I bought the chest strap/transmitter and it works perfectly.

I'm notoriously old school, so consider the source.

A-fib or other arhythmia will feel different, you'll know there's a problem.

I don't use a HR monitor. I won a Polar last year and used it for a week.

If I'm able to breathe every four steps (left-right-left-breathe), I'm good for a few more miles at goal pace. If I need to go to every two steps (in-out-in-out) I'm getting depleted or pushing too hard up a hill. If it's in the last 10k I'll just keep pushing and try to minimize the seconds per mile lost.

Raysharp001 wrote:

I'm notoriously old school, so consider the source.

A-fib or other arhythmia will feel different, you'll know there's a problem.

I don't use a HR monitor. I won a Polar last year and used it for a week.

If I'm able to breathe every four steps (left-right-left-breathe), I'm good for a few more miles at goal pace. If I need to go to every two steps (in-out-in-out) I'm getting depleted or pushing too hard up a hill. If it's in the last 10k I'll just keep pushing and try to minimize the seconds per mile lost.

I was running a race this past spring and an older runner who has a fib had to stop to control his arrhythmia, we were half mile from the finish of a 30k. He slowed down for maybe a minute and finished strong. I talked to him about it after the race, sounds so scary, but luckily he is very in tune.

Yup. If you feel a weird flutter in your chest and are kight-headed, if it's A-Fib, stop, breathe deep, hope it converts right away, if not, go to the hospital.

I just think a wrist monitor in a race is not necessarily accurate, absent any other symptom.

Optical wrist HRMs are useless for running. Mine (scosche) would be pegged at 190 bpm no matter what my speed. I threw it out and got a Garmin chest strap. Good news: I'm not going to die of a heart attack; it was just picking up my cadence.

My Garmin 235 goes 115-125bpm at 10min per mile jog and then randomly shoots up to 180-190bpm for the next 10 min of my run. All I can do is laugh when this happens...

This is an unbearably "hobbyjogger" thread.

Slowing down in a race when you felt good because of your heart rate monitor?

This should be nominated for 2018 Hobbyjogger Thread of the Year.

HobbyJoggerSpotted wrote:

This is an unbearably "hobbyjogger" thread.

Slowing down in a race when you felt good because of your heart rate monitor?

This should be nominated for 2018 Hobbyjogger Thread of the Year.

Spoken like someone who has yet to hit 40. Wrist-based heart rate monitors may not be 100% reliable, but if you keep in touch with your HS classmates, a few start dropping dead of heart attaches every year once you hit your 40s. It's reasonable to ask about anything having to do with heart rate.

I've hit as high as 215 on my watch during a race. It didn't make me stop or slow down. But it made me wonder.

ooper wrote:

Never look at HR during a race. If you're gasping your HR will be high, no need for digital feedback. You need to pay greater attention to your effort levels during training.

I never gasp when running, even when doing 250 meters hard intervals with little rest, so I just wonder about this concept of gasping, what does it mean, does many experience this? I heard someone say that some guy had a big chest cavity, is that me then? My vo2max or talent is not special, just this. Thoughts?

2-cents.

I have the new Fenix 5xs and so does another running buddy. When I run without him, my HR seems to be extremely accurate. When we run near each other, my HR goes wonky and super high. Way higher than my HR CAN go.

Wonder if there are some communication issues between bluetooth devices that is throwing them off?

This happens to me during training and has happened numerous times.

I'm using the Fenix 3 HR Sapphire and it does this. I have read somewhere here that it counts our stride instead of heart rate when that happens - based on some comments. There had been instances that even during my very easy recovery run that it reached 200 too and wouldn't turn green until I stop and rest. Since it's been happening at random, I ignore it as long as I'm feeling okay.

There was also an incident when I ran in a marathon with 41 F temperature that it was stuck between 121-125 even if I was running on race pace. I agree with them, if you're feeling fine, run by feel instead of being too overly dependent on your watch. I'm trying to do that.

P.S. The only annoying thing is when this happens, my VO2Max on the watch drops and my recovery time is longer(on the watch). Although I know they shouldn't be true measure, I'm too competitive with myself that I want everything to be "good" on my watch side of things lol

I clicked on because 'end of NYC' caught my eye.

Most cardiac related deaths in road races tend to occur near the end as a person pushes in, 18m mark may have been a little early for that. However, like the poster above, I'd recommend a visit to the doc.

If any RD is lurking, please position a AED at the 400 meter to go spot.